EMC vuln gives mere sysadmins the power of storage admins

Time to patch VNX and Celerra software before non-experts do something silly

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EMC has warned a flaw in the Control Station software for its VNX and Celerra arrays could allow just about anyone logged into them to do just about anything.

EMC's described the fault as stemming from “Script files in affected products exist with ownership permissions for the nasadmin group account.”

The nasadmin group is designed as a group of general users, while the user with the same name “has system-wide management capabilities for the box and is authorized to make extensive changes to the storage system.” The flaw means folks in the group get the same privileges as nasdmin, the user.

That means mere sysadmins allowed to log into to VNX and Celerra devices and “exploit this vulnerability to run arbitrary commands as the root user.”

Which may get storage admins more than a little jumpy, lest those less familiar with their arrays' operation

Celerra owners know their boxen are already obsolete, but nonetheless have been urged by EMC to upgrade “at the earliest opportunity” by getting their hands on this download. VNX users are urged to do likewise, with their download available here.

EMC has tipped its hat to Doug DePerry of iSEC Partners for finding the flaw. ®